And another point, whenever you make such a split, when you split up people along racial boundaries you are making assumptions and generalizations by leaps and bounds based on your perspective which includes what you are told, what you read, what you hear, and by who are you told, and from who you read and from who the writer read or heard. It all builts upon itself. You make many many errors when you do such a thing.

When you split the catagories between male and female, the world into two groups you can no longer be objective and accurate. The amounts of error and assuptions are countless. So what you are left with is pretty much yelling in the wind. Meaningless endless discussion.

Think of it this way if you were to split up all living animals into two groups which groups would you split them into? There are so many variations that a discussion and debate about this topic would be pointless. Mathimatically the amount of erros and contradictions that compound again would be countless.

For your first part, you are assuming the worst of the worst of the male first off.

I can see where I am merely being defensive, but you are just reasonable. Feel a little targeted here?

Obviously you do, cause you are assuming that every possible difference that is mentioned is meant as a negatvie. That men are more competive socially, whereas women are more inclined towards connensus is proven many times by biologist and psychologists. It is only you who are offended by it because apparently, you consider it a negative aspect. But that is only your personal ethics, not a judgement of value in itself.

She told me that giving birth isn't more of a pain and hardship for a woman then it is for a man. Now automatically you think "What are you talking about? A woman has a living thing coming out of a very painful spot while the man doesn't do anything!" But she brought up the point that if she were to give birth I would be there by her side and I would watch her be in pain. And she told me she would rather be in pain then watch her loved one be in pain, and I would tend to agree with her.

You have a very sweet girlfriend. naive. But sweet.

That women are more ephatical with other creatures than men is also a proven fact, and again, it is your personal judgement of the issue that makes it a negative. Not the fact itself.

And another point, whenever you make such a split, when you split up people along racial boundaries you are making assumptions and generalizations by leaps and bounds based on your perspective which includes what you are told, what you read, what you hear, and by who are you told, and from who you read and from who the writer read or heard. It all builts upon itself. You make many many errors when you do such a thing.

Very true. About every single topic one can ever possibly discuss on the planet. Perhaps we should simply stop discussing things, seeing as we only base them on what we hear and read anyways. Especially history is a tricky one. Hardly a more subjective branch of research to be found. Oh, how foolish of us to hang around on a history forum. tsk tsk.

Though I must say, last time I checked, gender was not a racial issue, so could be we might get away with it this time.

Edited by Aelfgifu - 13-Jun-2008 at 20:16

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.

"I can see where I am merely being defensive, but you are just reasonable. Feel a little targeted here? "

Right. I'll wait for you to make points for the discussion.

"Obviously you do, cause you are assuming that every possible difference that is mentioned is meant as a negatvie. That men are more competive socially, whereas women are more inclined towards connensus is proven many times by biologist and psychologists. It is only you who are offended by it because apparently, you consider it a negative aspect. But that is only your personal ethics, not a judgement of value in itself."

No in that sense it could be negative to either or. But I think it is negative to humanity to make such generalizations. Biologists and psychologists record cultural trends and then morph it into their perspective totally skewing reality if they did what you say they did.

"You have a very sweet girlfriend. Sweet but naive."

Maybe she is considering things not just on a physical level but an emotional level too. I thought someone who talks more in depth about the soul as opposed to just football and beer would understand.

Well, it was you who suggested footbal as a more reasonable topic to discuss in the pub than my sexlife, so I thought it was merely reasonabe to assume you spoke your own opinion on the issue. Else why say it? In answer to that question, by the way, my countries national team is in the EC, and since anyone knows it it treason to support anyone else, it would be a very dim idea to discuss said issue in a pub full of countrymen and women. If one wants to evade being lynched anyway.

Oh, I am all into emtional levels here. I am sure that between labour pains and screaming, I will be sure to spend some time on feeling sorry for the father of any child I bear for the terrible ordeal he has to go through standing there watching, the poor thing.

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.

"Well, it was you who suggested footbal as a more reasonable topic to discuss in the pub than my sexlife, so I thought it was merely reasonabe to assume you spoke your own opinion on the issue. Else why say it?"

I said your arguement sounded frustrated, you came in saying I was saying you were sexually frustrated and would discuss it in a pub, I just said that you might want a different topic. I don't know I just wouldn't discuss such a thing because i'm a bit more private. It wasn't a serious point. Don't know why you're holdong on to that so much.

"Oh, I am all into emtional levels here. I am sure that between labour pains and screaming, I will be sure to spend some time on feeling sorry for the father of any child I bear for the terrible ordeal he has to go through standing there watching, the poor thing."

No one is asking you to feel sorry for anyone. I don't think you got the point she was trying to make and it doesn't seem like you will ever be capable either. I hope i'm wrong.

I cant really argue about you and your girlfriend's subjective experiences so I'll take it from here:

Carpathian Wolf wrote:

As for your second part, i don't disagree that most of the women do the house work. But so what? What does this show/prove? Nothing unless you bring in theories like the previous one and back it up with points on a weak foundation.

This proves that a condition exists whereby two identifiable groups of people, all other things being equal, are taking on different shares of the burden involved in maintaining a household. This begs a question, and questions should be answered.

Carpathian Wolf wrote:

And another point, whenever you make such a split, when you split up people along racial boundaries you are making assumptions and generalizations by leaps and bounds based on your perspective which includes what you are told, what you read, what you hear, and by who are you told, and from who you read and from who the writer read or heard. It all builts upon itself. You make many many errors when you do such a thing.

When you split the catagories between male and female, the world into two groups you can no longer be objective and accurate. The amounts of error and assuptions are countless. So what you are left with is pretty much yelling in the wind. Meaningless endless discussion.

To be clear, I have not in any way suggested that men and women are different in their capabilities or virtues and I would never argue that they are somehow opposed to each other. But when you have an observed reality - that the vast majority of leaders in history have been men - you have to examine that fact to figure out why it is. And there's no way to examine that except by looking at the relationship between men and women.

I realize that you believe it would be better to just leave well enough alone and pretend everyone has always had an equal chance of success in whatever they wanted to do, but I don't think you can maintain that in the face of facts that show the opposite. By ignoring this problem you leave the field open to those who would argue that the historical dominance by men shows that they are superior and inherently belong in a position of dominance. It's only by finding the real causes for male dominance that you can counter that argument. Knowing the causes also helps identify the best ways to take effective measures that will mitigate that dominance in the future. This can have a huge impact on how people live, so it's hardly meaningless.

"This proves that a condition exists whereby two identifiable groups of people, all other things being equal, are taking on different shares of the burden involved in maintaining a household. This begs a question, and questions should be answered."

Cultural and nothing else I would say. I don't think men/women are better then men/women at one task or another which is why men/women take the role of this and that around the house.

"To be clear, I have not in any way suggested that men and women are different in their capabilities or virtues and I would never argue that they are somehow opposed to each other. But when you have an observed reality - that the vast majority of leaders in history have been men - you have to examine that fact to figure out why it is. And there's no way to examine that except by looking at the relationship between men and women."

Don't disagree there. It's just that some people like Aelfgifu think that men and women do have different capabilities and virtues. And I think that such notions are disgusting.

"I realize that you believe it would be better to just leave well enough alone and pretend everyone has always had an equal chance of success in whatever they wanted to do, but I don't think you can maintain that in the face of facts that show the opposite. By ignoring this problem you leave the field open to those who would argue that the historical dominance by men shows that they are superior and inherently belong in a position of dominance. It's only by finding the real causes for male dominance that you can counter that argument. Knowing the causes also helps identify the best ways to take effective measures that will mitigate that dominance in the future. This can have a huge impact on how people live, so it's hardly meaningless."

I'm not pretending everyone was equal I just don't believe on a male conspiracy to keep "women down". I'm argueing against both a male and female superiority. Or the notions such as the person above who thinks that "when there are laws and rules women are the rulers. When brute force is in play men rule." So we're basically morons and the only way we can rule is to beat our chests and kill others while women are divine bringers of justice and tolerance.

The reasons were just cultura. Yes there were situations where women were opressed, but so were other groups of people based on other discriminations. But to say that the whole historical world was some sexist chovanistic hell treating women like shit at every turn is fairy tales for the neo-femenists to talk about while comforting each other about self inferiority complexes.

There are many factors of why men rule, but I point out what I believe to be the key factor: child bearing.

According to anthropologists investigating the lives of hunter-gatherers and the first Neolithic farmers, their societies seemed to be relatively egalitarian. (as confirmed by Ian Hodder working at Catalhoyuk). Men and women usually participated in similar tasks and held relatively equal status (male graves were just as fancy as female graves; as many female skulls as male skulls were used as icons). The only major difference between male and female roles was the fact that women bore children and breast-fed them; and biologically, the mother's bond to the child is always stronger. But when not pregnant or breast-feeding, women tended to participate in exactly the same type of tasks as men; but most women were obliged spend a rather significant amount of time "out-of work" whenever they get pregnant.

When society became more sophisticated and civilizations were created, a clear division of labour emerged; and the ruling heirarchy obviously had to dedicate the bulk of their time tending to "state matters" and "military matters".

Considering that infant mortality was very high and women had on average 5 children in the lifetime, it meant that the time and effort that women had available to dedicate to state and military matters was heavily limited by her biological duties. So logically, the rulers were men; and when men came to rule as a habitual practice, people just assmed it to be the general rule.

All you have to do is to imagine yourself as a citizen of a Bronze Age civilization. Who would you trust to lead your city and to ensure its integrity and prosperity? A muscular warrior who can fight and work all year round? Or an equally charismatic and intelligent woman who had to take 18-months "off-work" every other year to tend to child matters?

Nowadays, with a low infant mortality rate and advanced medicine, women are able to dedicate more and more time to develop their careers. As a result, women are become more and more prominent as both political and business leaders. However, old habits die hard, and many people still trust "male leaders" more than "female leaders" out of tradition, but these concepts will change over the following generations.

Perhaps the combination of some posts / replies in this thread provide some suggestion of why men have been most often the 'leaders'. Perhaps men are inclined towards the 'must be right' sort of stance, and of course the best way to 'be seen' to be 'right' is to be in charge. On the other hand, perhaps women are less inclined to hammer their point home over and over again in order to 'prove' that they are 'right'. No offense intended to anyone in particular who has posted / replied in this thread.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana

If we were to take the example off of this forum we would be lead that women instead of discussing the topic bring up random statements that were never made by anyone else but themselves.

But since we are all mature objective people we know that there is no difference between male/female potential and virtue. So it would be better that we continue to focus on the true factors, the cultural ones as to why there seems to be a trend one way or another.

If we were to take this forum as an exaple, we would base our opinion of the whole of womankind, 50% of the worlds population, on me.

Now, I dare any of you to be willing to take a burden like that....

Carpathian Wolf wrote:

If we were to take the example off of this forum we would be lead that women instead of discussing the topic bring up random statements that were never made by anyone else but themselves.

And there you go again. Is there really no post you can make without some pitiful slur to take your own inability to formulate your thoughts properly out at me?

It is really quite simple you see. You twisted everything I said in simple black an white oneliners, and then turned your judgement on these twisted abohorrattions of my words into a personal attack on me. And now you wonder why I am disinclined to give you the honour of civil discussion? If you wanted a discussion, you should have stuck to voicing your opinions on the subject, and not turned to trying to win through personal attacks.

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.

Religion has always reinforced male supremacy (With a few exceptions). Even now, Christianity views women as equal, but different. In Catholicism the official world view is that women take care of the home and men do the 'real' work. Islam is a whollely different kettle of fish, but some women have proven to be powerful in the Islamic world.

generally because the environment they were inspired and grew in was already male dominated. Abrahamic religions a very patriarchal, but that reflects the culture they came from.

But I did make my points. All i said was that your arguements seemed frustrated and you came in and said that "oh typical men telling me i'm sexually frustrated." when nothing of the sort was brought up, and YOU weren't even called frustrated let alone sexually. Which is still just odd that you brought it up.

And then you said that women rule when there is law and justice and men rule when there is brute strength. So who's making generalizations?

Sorry if you can quote me and show me where i've made a personal attack i'd love to sit down and apologize for it, but so far it seems like you jumped in head first without first thinking about what you said and now you are back tracking trying to make me seem like the bad guy here.

I'm not pretending everyone was equal I just don't believe on a male conspiracy to keep "women down". I'm argueing against both a male and female superiority. Or the notions such as the person above who thinks that "when there are laws and rules women are the rulers. When brute force is in play men rule." So we're basically morons and the only way we can rule is to beat our chests and kill others while women are divine bringers of justice and tolerance.

The reasons were just cultura. Yes there were situations where women were opressed, but so were other groups of people based on other discriminations. But to say that the whole historical world was some sexist chovanistic hell treating women like shit at every turn is fairy tales for the neo-femenists to talk about while comforting each other about self inferiority complexes.

I'm sorry, but I obviously didn't read into previous posters' comments what you did. Obviously men can and do rule in civil societies, as can women. But it's close to impossible for women to thrive in an environment where brute force is the final arbiter of success - hence the distinction. Are you really arguing against that?

I also think you're working under a false dichotomy. The fact (and it is a fact) that women have historically been oppressed doesn't necessarily have to stem from intentional maliciousness or conspiracy on the part of men. In many times and places (far too many for it to have been simply the result of chance), men simply assumed that women had nothing useful to contribute to public life and were inherently subordinate. One need not be sinister to be ignorant.

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